On 16 December 2014, EDRi-member Bits of Freedom organised the tenth Dutch Big Brother Awards. The Minister of Security and Justice, Ivo Opstelten, won the (un)popular vote for, among other things, his plans to keep data retention. It is the third time he has won the prize.

Professional experts awarded Dutch schools an award for giving publishers of educational material access to their pupils’ personal data.

For the event, several musicians composed privacy protest songs. These songs are available as a BitTorrent bundle (see link below). Designer Aral Balkan was the keynote speaker of the event. In his talk – The Camera Panopticon – he explained the business models for surveillance and the alternatives that designers and developers can provide to internet users.

The winner of the Winston Award was Edward Snowden. The award is named after the main character of the novel ‘1984’ by George Orwell. By awarding it to Snowden, Bits of Freedom honours him for his huge personal sacrifice, through which has deeply impacted the world for the
better. Through his resolve to do the right thing he has shown the world the vast scale and dangers of mass surveillance. Thanks to his disclosures, he single-handedly managed to rejuvenate the global privacy debate.